Yesterday the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement reported that there is an: “extreme difference between Australian and international drug prices. This difference is likely to make Australia an extremely lucrative target for drug smuggling syndicates.”
Using prices from 2007-08 it gave as one example: “the wholesale price for a kilogram of cocaine in Colombia, a source country, is reported to be US$2,348. By comparison, the same amount of cocaine had an Australian wholesale price of between US$150,000 to US$250,000. ... wholesale prices in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada ranged between US$10,000 to approximately US$70,000 per kilogram.”
Michael Phelan, Deputy Commissioner, Australian Federal Police, explained to the committee, “the reason the price is a lot lower in the United States is because supply is a lot easier in the United States than it is here. Those that are willing to pay for it at that particular price slide you up the demand curve and the price curve and you end up paying those terrible wholesale prices for it, which in turn see the profits and people willing to do it. It is a couple of years salary, the wholesale price for a kilo of cocaine.”
